Scott Joplin: Piano Rags
album by Joshua Rifkin
Piano Rags by Scott Joplin is an album by Joshua Rifkin consisting of ragtime compositions by Scott Joplin, released by Nonesuch Records in 1970. The spine of the original album and various compact disc reissues render the title as Scott Joplin: Piano Rags.
The album is considered to have been the first to reintroduce Joplin's music in the early 1970s and thus contributing to the 1970s revival of Ragtime. It received critical recognition upon its release, and, after several of Joplin's compositions were featured in the 1973 film The Sting, achieved commercial success, becoming Nonesuch Records' first million-selling album.
Liner notes
In the liner notes he wrote for the album, Rifkin provides a brief history of ragtime music, a biographical sketch of Joplin, and a musical analysis of the included compositions. He concludes by saying: "The awakening of interest in black culture and history during the last decade has not yet resurrected Joplin and his contemporaries, who remain barely known beyond a growing coterie of ragtime devotees. Yet it offers a perfect opportunity to discover the beauties of his music and accord him the honor that he deserves."
Reception
The album was released in November 1970. It sold 100,000 copies the first year, and went on to become Nonesuch's first million-selling album. For the first time, record stores found themselves putting ragtime in the classical music section. The Billboard "Best-Selling Classical LPs" chart for 28 September 1974 has this album at #5, Rifkin's follow-up album, Volume II, at #4, and a combined set of both volumes at #3; in total, the two volumes had been on the chart for 64 weeks.
“Scott Joplin: Piano Rags” enters the record as album by Joshua Rifkin. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Scott, Joplin and Piano can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“Scott Joplin: Piano Rags” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Scott, Joplin and Piano provides the most credible route into that argument.
Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 24, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q7436590. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1970, 1973 and 1974.
Rights, attribution and provenance may remain disputed even when a general reference summary presents a stable account. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Scott Joplin: Piano Rags” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.